“The principle on which this edition of the _Arcadia_ has been put through the press perhaps needs some explanation. As the sheets of MS. left the hands of Sidney, after the first book, or perhaps two, had been completed, they were transmitted to his sister the Countess of Pembroke, and some of them mislaid and lost. Hence one great _hiatus_ supplied by Sir William Alexander, others by R(ichard) B(eling) and Mr Johnstone. It is also known that the Countess of Pembroke added to the episodes, adventures, and strange turns, at least in all the later books. Hence there is to be met with an Arcadian undergrowth which needs much careful pruning; and this undertaken, with needful compression, will leave the reader all that he desires of Sidney’s own. Growing like certain fanciful parasites upon forest trees, on the books of the _Arcadia_ are certain eclogues of laboriously-written and fantastical poetry, some in Latin measures, against which Walpole was right to protest, and anent which Pope said:-- ‘And Sidney’s verse halts ill on Roman feet.’ “These have been boldly removed without any loss, it is believed, to the romance; lastly, long episodes of no possible use to the book, which we think have been supplied by other hands than Sidney’s have, whilst using their very words and phrases, been cut down. {xxvi} Tedious excrescences have thus been removed, but it is to be hoped with judgment, so that the reader gets all we think is Sidney’s, and without curb put upon his utterance.” In the edition now offered to the student of Elizabethan literature an opposite method has been adopted. Rather than run any risk of omitting anything that is Sidney’s, it has been thought advisable to give the whole _Arcadia_, excrescences and all, especially as the additions of those who were fellow-spirits and admirers, and belonged to the same great epoch, cannot be without their interest to readers in the present age, who may, at any rate, skip the contributions of Alexander and Beling if they are so minded. The example of Hain Friswell has been followed, however, so far as the modernisation of the spelling and punctuation is concerned. “A Continuation of Sir P. Sidney’s Arcadia written by a young Gentlewoman” (Mrs A. W. Weames), and published at London, in 1651, and James Johnstone’s “Supplement to a defect in the Third Book,” which is merely an alternative to Alexander’s, are not included.